A major union leader says Pierre Poilievre’s claim that he lost his seat because of his pledge to cut the public service is “simplistic” and should also be attributed to voters linking the Conservative leader to U.S. President Donald Trump.
“I think what people saw was too many similarities. People see the platform that was presented. They see past decision-making and they link it to what’s happening down south in an extreme manner,” said Sharon DeSousa, national president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), the largest federal public sector union.
She said Trump’s “mass firings” of government workers caused Canadians to worry the same could happen here.
“They’re worried about their livelihood. They’re dependent on public services,” she said.
After Trump was elected president a second time, he launched the Department of Government Efficiency with the help of billionaire Elon Musk, which gutted several U.S. government agencies and fired thousands of workers.
DeSousa said those events “changed the game” of the 2025 federal election.
Poilievre said on Friday that he lost the riding of Carleton — which he represented for more than two decades — because of an “aggressive” union campaign after he was honest about wanting to cut federal jobs.
“It’s an Ottawa riding with a lot of federal public servants who disagreed with that approach,” Poilievre said in an interview with CBC’s The House. “They ran a very aggressive campaign, particularly the public sector unions did, to defeat me on that basis.”
DeSousa said PSAC ran a campaign during the 2025 federal election called For You, Canada that focused on protecting public services and reached about four million people. The “very basic” campaign targeted MPs in a variety of ridings, she said.
“At the end of the day, the public sector unions don’t have a vote. Individuals do,” DeSousa said. “I feel like the stance that is being provided is very simplistic.”
In an exclusive interview with CBC’s The House, host Catherine Cullen asks Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre how he makes sense of losing the Ottawa-area seat he held for two decades. Poilievre says public sector unions ‘ran a very aggressive campaign’ to defeat him.
The union president also said Poilievre’s track record in the House of Commons made him even less appealing to his constituents. DeSousa cited Poilievre’s vote against developing a national framework to establish a school food program.
“I think it’s also a disconnect with him and the members of that particular riding. Keep in mind, this is someone who’s held that riding for 20 years and was re-elected seven times,” she said.
In a statement to CBC News, the president of the Canadian Association of Professional Employees, Nathan Prier, said “Poilievre actively campaigned against the interests of both his constituents and all Canadians, and as a result, his ideas were rejected.”
Prier also said Poilievre blaming public sector unions should be a warning to “anyone else who fell for his masquerading as a friend of unions, while he clearly attacks federal public sector unions over his electoral defeat.”
Poilievre claims Liberals hid plans to cut public service
During his interview on The House, Poilievre argued he was honest with Canadians about his plans to cut the public service while the Liberals and Mark Carney hid their intentions to do the same.
“Some people might say, ‘Well, it wasn’t the best idea to run on a smaller federal public service when you’re an Ottawa MP,’ but I had an entire country to represent,” Poilievre said. “I had to be honest with people.”
Last week, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne sent letters to cabinet ministers asking them to figure out “ambitious savings proposals” to handle public sector spending. The wording of the letter was confirmed by Champagne’s director of communications.
In an exclusive interview, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre speaks with CBC Radio’s The House host Catherine Cullen about the ongoing trade negotiations between Canada and the U.S., his bid to regain a seat in the House of Commons and what he thinks led to him losing his Ottawa riding.
DeSousa said she doesn’t think the Liberals were hiding their plans because the Trudeau government had already begun the work to cut federal spending, including funding to departments and agencies.
Carney’s election platform promised to cap spending growth at two per cent per year through 2028-29. He also said during the election campaign that he would cap but not cut the public service. DeSousa said she’s hoping Carney will keep that commitment.
“The prime minister still has an opportunity to make good on his promise, and I think it’s a little bit early to say that it was a blatant lie,” DeSousa said.
“We’re in a transition period … the prime minister is well aware of the position of the federal public service, the unions and the workers.”